The Conservatives leapt on Labour’s idea for third country migrant “returns hubs” as evidence that cancelling their controversial Rwanda plan was a mistake.
In fundamental terms, the Rwanda plan was very different, not least because it was implacably opposed by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which is now – in principle at least – backing this concept.
The Tories were intending to deport everyone who arrived in the UK illegally to the central African country, regardless of whether they had a legitimate asylum claim.
Labour‘s plan is about dealing with people who have no such claims – who have exhausted every avenue for appeal, and therefore, in the words of the UNHCR, are “not in need of international protection”.
This important distinction is unlikely to prevent real queasiness among those in Labour who see the idea as far too reminiscent of the Conservative approach.
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The government is hoping the UNHRC’s intervention will provide a degree of legal and political cover to pursue the policy.
But the details are still incredibly sketchy.
A Home Office Source tells me “there are some people it’s very difficult to return at the moment, e.g. those from Afghanistan.
“So the idea would be a period of leave in another country which can be terminated if things change in their country of origin, but also recognises they have failed to successfully claim asylum in the UK.”
It’s unclear how long that “period of leave” would be.
Would migrants stay there indefinitely, if the situation doesn’t change in their countries of origin?
And if not – would deals be struck for permanent resettlement elsewhere?
It’s politically, diplomatically, morally and legally complex territory.
Sir Keir Starmer previously talked about working closely with Italy to look at ways of processing migrants in a third country, after the Italians struck a deal with Albania and have begun sending rejected asylum seekers there (after months of legal wrangling).
Would the Albanians have the appetite for more of these deals? Which other countries would be prepared to step in?
How much would we be prepared to pay?
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It’s clearly far from a fully developed policy. But the willingness of government sources to talk it up points to their political need to talk tough on migration – and sound like they do really have a plan to deal with the issue.
The prime minister promised to “smash the gangs” and get a grip on the problem of illegal migration – and the asylum backlog.
But with record numbers of people making that dangerous journey across the Channel in small boats – and under growing pressure on the right from Reform – his government is clearly prepared to countenance policies which would previously have been deeply unpalatable.
